


Right Where It Begins

by UnchartedCloud



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 18:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4798508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnchartedCloud/pseuds/UnchartedCloud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amidst the smell of smoke and chlorine, Chloe wonders if she hasn't maybe, just a little, started to fall for her best friend. Set directly post-pool break in during Episode 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right Where It Begins

_I'm trying not to let it show, that I don't want to let this go._  
_Is there somewhere you can meet me?_  
_'Cause I clutched your arms like stairway railings._  
_And you clutched my brain and eased my ailing._

 

 

> _-Is there Somewhere?, Halsey_

* * *

 

You breathe out, and the cloying, earthy smoke that escapes your lips mixes with the pungent chemical smell of the chlorine; it clings to your hair despite two rounds of shampoo, and soaks into the clothes that you’ve laid out over your desk to dry. Across the room your door opens and Max slips in, soft and silent as a silhouette, a towel in her hand. She tips to the side and runs it through her hair while Connor Oberst serenades you from your hi-fi’s speakers. For once you have the volume turned low - not for the sake of your sleeping step-Führer, you think, but with the joint in your hand and the cool October breeze coming through your window, loud music just seems...unnecessary.

“Thanks for the towel,” Max says, her muted voice amounting to something just above a whisper. When your eyes return to her, she’s holding it as though she doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

 “Least I could do after kidnapping you,” you grin, then tip your chin towards the door without lifting your head from where it lays in your palm. “Just hang it on the doorknob.”

 She nods, does, and then pads over to the foot of your bed. With a worn-out sigh she flops down beside you as though it’s perfectly natural for the two of you to share a bed. As though it hasn’t been almost five years since she’s done it.

 “I needed that shower,” she says, and runs a hand over her upper arm. “I could practically _feel_ the chlorine making a desert out of my skin.”

 “Oh no, ashy Max,” you say with a smirk, and tilt your head to the side so you can see her. “Maybe you should sleep on the floor; last thing I need is your dead skin all up in my sheets.”

 She elbows you for that, right in your unprotected ribs. “Like I’m not already wearing your shirt,” she grumbles, and you just laugh.

 You take another hit before wordlessly offering the joint to her. She declines, of course, but. It seemed polite to do, anyway. It’s the thought that counts, yada yada yada.

 In the background, the track switches.

 “D’you think he heard us?” she asks quietly. She’s looking at the ceiling, little concerned lines furrowing her brow. You sigh smoke.

 “Step-douche?” You ask, and reach over to put the joint out in the ashtray balanced on the boxes beside you. For a moment you consider this, then your lips curl down and you shake your head. You’d taken all the necessary precautions: turned off your car’s engine at the corner, pushed it in neutral to the curb in front of your house - something you hadn’t done in months because the truck is too big to push on your own - and snuck in through your bedroom window. Quiet as a pair of church mice. “No way. Dude might sleep like he’s still in a warzone, but there was nothing for him to hear. We’re in the clear.”

 You feel, rather than see, her nod. You feel everything about her, really, like every cell in your body is acutely aware of every cell in hers. Her presence beside you is like unspent static electricity on your skin - never _quite_ a full sensation, never quite actual contact, but a tingling energy that’s impossible to ignore. Like a pent-up shiver, like a held breath. Like. Like.

 Like you kind of wish she would roll over and settle against your side.

 The thought makes your heart stutter.

 You wish Rachel was here.

 But not the way you did before. When you wished for Rachel the last few days, it was _in place of_ Max. During that first ride in your truck, that first trip to the lighthouse, to the diner, to your hideaway, Max reminded you so much of Rachel that it made your lungs ache. And you’d wished with every fiber of your being that it _was_ Rachel sitting beside you in your truck, that it was _Rachel_ ordering that bacon omelette, that it was _Rachel_ playing target practice with you. Not Max.

 Now, though...you think of her smug smirk when she opened the principal’s door from the inside, of her laugh as it rang off the walls of the empty gym. You remember watching her sneak through the locker room, the calm certainty of her steps as she kept just beyond the edge of the security guard’s sweeping flashlight. Even in the darkness you could see the _fierceness_ of her eyes, the strength in her stance - as though she held the power of nature _itself_ in her fist. When she ran to you in the security guard’s wake, all but crashing into you as she grabbed for your arms, you could feel her hands shaking and knew that she’d been terrified...but she hadn’t for a second looked it. In the moment she’d seemed a goddess: powerful, certain, and fearless.

 You’d wished Rachel was there, but not in Max’s place. No, you wanted her there just so she could witness this - this force of nature, barely contained beneath the skin of this soft, kind eighteen year old girl.

 You think that maybe, tonight, you might’ve...fallen for her. Just a little. Just a bit.

 You wet your lower lip, take a breath and open your mouth to speak, but it’s still several seconds before you actually turn your head and manage a hesitant, “Hey, Max…?”

 But she’s already asleep. Her lips are parted, just slightly, and her ribs expand and deflate in a deep, steady rhythm. The breath you’d steeled yourself with escapes you all at once, and you find yourself wearing a fond little smile.

It’s just as well, really. You think of Warren, the name-with-a-bruised-face, and all the times she’d stopped to text him while she was with you these last few days. You think of how he was the first person she turned to, her _immediate_ thought when your attempt at lockpicking failed. Of how disappointed she sounded when she had to turn down his drive-in offer. He’d been her best friend since she came to Blackwell months ago, and yeah you’ve known her longer but that...that had been five years ago. A lot can change in five years.

 That day in the bathroom, she hadn’t even recognized you.

So yeah, maybe it was just as well. Tomorrow you will wake before her, and lay in bed thinking of _what ifs_ until she stirs. You will immediately close your eyes and feign sleep, moving only when you feel her roll over and pick up her camera. In a moment of wild certainty you will dare her to kiss you, and you will stumble back in utter shock when she actually _does_. She will dress in Rachel’s clothes and your heart will give a not entirely unpleasant throb, and with a dreamy smile you will imagine a sunny future in which the three of you were safe, happy, and strong.

But for tonight, you are content that you are by her side, and promise yourself that you will do whatever it takes to stay there.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written at the end of my second play through of the game, while I was (keh, like I'm not still) writhing in Pricefield hell. It was also posted to my tumblr (UnchartedCloud.tumblr.com), where you can feel free to spend some time if you're bored. Thanks for reading!


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